Excited and Inspired, and Working Like Crazy

This winter into spring I've been weaving, photographing, learning about iPhone apps (and applying for a grant to study this phenomenon), so passionately that I've had to force myself to stop doing one or the other things in order to eat and sleep! I've been so excited about color and patterns in the baskets that I've been designing new pieces before I finish the ones I'm working on. (I still plan to write about the square, double-wall I mentioned in the last post ... but that will have to wait.)

I'll be exhibiting in Craft Boston next week, March 23-25 and then at the Smithsonian Craft Show in Washington, DC April 19-22. My website has been updated with all the new pieces. I still want to add encaustic to a few of the flat woven baskets. The encaustic makes the baskets stronger, protects them from moisture (and maybe light over time) and adds a slightly richer quality to the dyed and natural colors. I expect to use more of this technique in the future. 

Here's a peak into the encaustic studio (aka the greenhouse) and a few of the pieces I'm working on. There's a closer photo showing the frying pan (don't know what else to call it) with the molten wax/resin and brushes here.

The garden is starting to explode with flowers and photography potential. The flower photos above are close-up shots of a few of my hellebores. (You can see more on my gardening blog.) It's taking me longer and longer to walk down the driveway to get the mail. I get distracted by seeing what has just bloomed or by wanting to clear out just one more small bed ... I really need a clone, or TWO, to help me do all the things spinning around in my head.